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Topic : We Disagree On Punishment

"My husband is a spanker, but I don't believe in hitting my child." "My son knows he can run to my wife when I've told him no." Does this sound familiar? Tell us your story.

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We Disagree On Punishment

My daughter has girlfriends that come and spend the night, however, when things get pretty chaotic while they are having fun, they seem to lose repect for my house and damage it. For instance, I heard alot of laughing and loud noises and I came up to see what was happening. They said "sorry" and told me to look around the room. What I saw was a hole in the bathroom door, as big as a softball" I was shocked. My main question is, how long and what should be the punishment for this? I do know who really did this but since it happened in my house and I was not witness to this I can not make the parents pay for this. Can anyone tell me what kind of grounding I should do. Because my daughter needs to realize and maybe she will tell her friends to be more respectful of her house since she's getting the punishment.&nbsp

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Thank you &nbsp

Well they obviously do this because they feel that there will be no consequences for their actions at your house. Your daughter is the main ring-leader. Just because a friend may have caused your house some damage does not mean your daughter couldn't have stopped it. She is allowing her friends to do this to your house and she deserves the punishment.

First and foremost: THIS IS YOUR HOUSE, so what you say should apply.

Second: THERE SHOULD BE CONSEQUENCES. These may be that your daughter cannot have anyone over, and that the next time she does, (since she has lost your trust about these matters) you should supervise them the whole time, and once they have proven to you that they can behave responsibly and curteously that maybe next time there won't have to be so much supervision.

Third: YES YOU CAN MAKE THE PARENTS PAY FOR THIS, as their child has done damage to your house and they are responsible for bringing up such a disrespectful brat. In turn, you must expect that if your daughter breaks anything at anyone else's house that you will be paying for it, which is only fair.

Fourth: YOU DON'T HAVE TO KEEP GIVING YOUR CHILD CHANCES. If she continues to break the rules, she will never be allowed to have friends over again.

And your daughter should lose some privelages over this, such as she must be made to clean up after dinner for a fortnight, or not be allowed to watch the television for a month.

We Disagree On Punishment

I have an on going serious dispute with my spouse which is causeing us personal problems.

My children have been trained by my spouse to only eat Nuggets, PB&J, Frozen Pizza, and Raviolis.

When we make other things they refuse to eat and our dinner becomes a big fight. My spouse has just conceded and fixes them what they want. I am of the belief you control what they eat, when they go to bed, who they see, ect. I feel that the children are out of control. and we have lost. I always have to look like the big bad dad, forceing them to eat other things.

My spouse is a wimp.

The truth is, what they want are boundaries, not junk food. They may not realise it now, but when they are obese with heart problems, they will only have your spouse to thank.

I'm afraid that while dinner becomes a big fight when they eat healthily, you and your spouse will have to bear it until the children eat good food. Your spouse feeds them crap simply because it evades a fight and is therefore easier. Unfortunately, she is actually doing wrong by the children. By putting "peace" first over a child's nutrition, your spouse is only setting themselves up for a fall. It has been proven that with good nutrition comes good behaviour, and in addition, by reinforcing to your children that by fighting they will get what they want, your spouse is encouraging them to fight, because they know they will win.

Be strong. Your kids will not like it, and you will not like it, but long term, they will never know how much they owe you for providing them with nutrition, and ground rules. If you stick to your guns (both of you must agree on discipline for it to work) you will raise children who know how to discuss the things they want, not just throw a tantrum in order to get it.

EASE UP ON HER

My 13 yr old daughter brought home a bad report card. It had a 50 in math a57 in language and a 69 in science. the rest were A's and B's. She was grounded all last year( yes the entire year) for C's. She shows pigs and we raise them she has learned alot from this. And she has won many things. This is something she is very good at and something that she loves. She is in extra help for math. My husband is very strict on her. He has taken all the pigs away from her I mean sold all of them, he has grounded her, and now he thinks we should just be mean to her everyday. He spanked her 3 times last night because she did not have the amount of math problems done in the time that he allows. I think this is alittle extreme. He has only been her father for 4 years.( her real father doesn't care. He stated that he would sign away his rights to her so my husband can adopt her. which he does want to do.) He thinks because he can feel as if she was his own she should automaticaly feel the same. I mean she loves him. but now she has made the statement she does not want him to adopt her. How can I explain to him he is hurting the situation?&nbsp

I think that he is extreme and that he still need to make sure she knows he loves her.&nbsp

He told her last night he did not want her to say anything to him about school because she was a lier. because she lied to us. I think that he should still offer for her to talk to him, then we can check it out to find out if she is lying.&nbsp

Any advice will help.&nbsp

YOU REALLY NEED TO STOP THIS FROM GOING ON ANY FURTHER.I'M A MOTHER OF THREE CHILDREN.MY KIDS HAVE A STEP FATHER AND I'M A STEPCHILD MYSELF. I WOULD NOT ALLOW MY HUSBAND TO DO THAT TO ANY OF MY CHILDREN.IF MY MOTHER ALLOWED THAT I WOULD HAVE HATED HER FOR IT.YOU NEED TO EXPLAIN TO YOUR HUSBAND THAT MAYBE YOUR CHILD MIGHT HAVE A LEARNING PROBLEM OR SOMETHING ELSE GOING ON.MY SON IS 11 YRS. OLD AND HAVING PROBLEMS IN MATH.HE IS IN AFTER SCHOOL TUTORING.IT HELPS A LITTLE NOT A LOT.THAT'S WHERE MY HUSBAND AND MYSELF COME IN AND HELP HIM.WE TRY AND WORK OUT THE PROBLEMS TOGETHER.MAYBE SHE NEEDS GLASSES OR YOU COULD TALK TO HER TEACHER ABOUT SOMETHING THAT MIGHT HELP HER.PLEASE DO NOT LET YOU HUSBAND KEEP SPANKING HER.TAKE IT FROM ME MY STEPFATHER DID DO THAT AND I HATED HIM FOR IT.

It's your daughter!

My 13 yr old daughter brought home a bad report card. It had a 50 in math a57 in language and a 69 in science. the rest were A's and B's. She was grounded all last year( yes the entire year) for C's. She shows pigs and we raise them she has learned alot from this. And she has won many things. This is something she is very good at and something that she loves. She is in extra help for math. My husband is very strict on her. He has taken all the pigs away from her I mean sold all of them, he has grounded her, and now he thinks we should just be mean to her everyday. He spanked her 3 times last night because she did not have the amount of math problems done in the time that he allows. I think this is alittle extreme. He has only been her father for 4 years.( her real father doesn't care. He stated that he would sign away his rights to her so my husband can adopt her. which he does want to do.) He thinks because he can feel as if she was his own she should automaticaly feel the same. I mean she loves him. but now she has made the statement she does not want him to adopt her. How can I explain to him he is hurting the situation?&nbsp

I think that he is extreme and that he still need to make sure she knows he loves her.&nbsp

He told her last night he did not want her to say anything to him about school because she was a lier. because she lied to us. I think that he should still offer for her to talk to him, then we can check it out to find out if she is lying.&nbsp

Any advice will help.&nbsp

I do hope you read this since it's been a few days. As I read your email, I couldn't help but feel for this 13 year-old. Does a 13 year-old really get spanked? This seems highly inappropriate. Just the thought of a man putting his hands on your daughter makes me sick. How could you stand by and let this happen? The fact that she was spanked 3 times in one night deeply disturbs me and I feel like authorities should come into your home for child abuse! I personally would not let anyone spank my child who is not the dad. But, I must tell you that I do not believe in spanking to teach. What is she learning by this? She is only going to hate this man, if she doesn't already she is a Saint. Your child is your first priority, if the husband doesn't like it then too bad! Tell him to get involved somewhere else and let you deal with her studies. Sometimes you have to stand up and be strong for your daughters sake, she doesn't have anyone else but you!!!!!!

We Disagree On Punishment

While my husband and I agree on discipline with our children, that is not the same with his sister and brother-in-law. While all of our children are the same age and all well disciplined, we keep experiencing problems with them overreacting and even bullying our eldest child during the 3 or 4 times we see them each year. &nbsp

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Our inlaws and we couldn't be more different in our parenting styles. My husband and I are playful parents and enjoy being with our children while my inlaws are very serious people and openly mock my husband and I for playing kids music in our car and tell family members that we are overindulgent for buying our 2 1/2 and 4 year old sons certain toys like tricycles and a kid pool and taking them with us on family vacations (they go alone).&nbsp

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During our most recent visit to my husband's parents' house, my son started to form teams with his other two cousins and younger brother. I stepped away to get a jacket and came back to find my son explaining to my 3-year-old nephew that he was on the same team with my younger son. While I smiled at my son's efforts to organize a soccer game, I overheard my brother-in-law snap at my son to "stop being mean". While I know my son isn't perfect and he can sometimes say things with the wrong tone of voice (he just turned 4, after all), this was a perfectly innocent comment on my son's part. Later, my mother-in-law gave all of her grandsons light sabers. During play, my nephew ran between my two sons while they were dueling and my son struck his cousin with the light saber. My nephew didn't seem to notice or care and kept running but my sister-in-law saw it, jumped out of her chair, and shreaked at my son for hurting her son. Her son started to cry then and my son ran over to apologize. She pulled her son away from my son, shot my son a mean look, and asked her son, "how did Alex hurt you?". My husband stepped up, apologized to his sister and explained that it was an accident. His sister backed down then but she hovered around her son the rest of the evening and my other sister-in-law overheard her tell her husband that my son was a tyrant and always hurting their son. Meanwhile, both of my sons get along famously with my husband's brother's daughter and their other friends and in fact, when he and his cousin are playing without my inlaws around, everyone gets along great too. It's only when my inlaws are there that there are problems.&nbsp

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While these comments and overreactions don't seem to bother my son as nearly as much as it does me, I am concerned that I'm teaching my inlaws how to treat my son. I noticed during this last visit that the pattern may be spreading to my younger son who learned over to hug their 15-month-old daughter who was sitting besides him on the floor and again, my sister-in-law flew across the room to pick her baby up and away from my son. I fear that eventually, these snide comments will hurt my sons' feelings and I would prefer to stop it before it does. My husband usually lets these things slide and only occasionally steps in like the sword incident but I feel we need to be more assertive in stopping this behavior. Am I overreacting or should I step in and start defending my son against his aunt and uncle?&nbsp

I agree

While my husband and I agree on discipline with our children, that is not the same with his sister and brother-in-law. While all of our children are the same age and all well disciplined, we keep experiencing problems with them overreacting and even bullying our eldest child during the 3 or 4 times we see them each year. &nbsp

&nbsp

Our inlaws and we couldn't be more different in our parenting styles. My husband and I are playful parents and enjoy being with our children while my inlaws are very serious people and openly mock my husband and I for playing kids music in our car and tell family members that we are overindulgent for buying our 2 1/2 and 4 year old sons certain toys like tricycles and a kid pool and taking them with us on family vacations (they go alone).&nbsp

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During our most recent visit to my husband's parents' house, my son started to form teams with his other two cousins and younger brother. I stepped away to get a jacket and came back to find my son explaining to my 3-year-old nephew that he was on the same team with my younger son. While I smiled at my son's efforts to organize a soccer game, I overheard my brother-in-law snap at my son to "stop being mean". While I know my son isn't perfect and he can sometimes say things with the wrong tone of voice (he just turned 4, after all), this was a perfectly innocent comment on my son's part. Later, my mother-in-law gave all of her grandsons light sabers. During play, my nephew ran between my two sons while they were dueling and my son struck his cousin with the light saber. My nephew didn't seem to notice or care and kept running but my sister-in-law saw it, jumped out of her chair, and shreaked at my son for hurting her son. Her son started to cry then and my son ran over to apologize. She pulled her son away from my son, shot my son a mean look, and asked her son, "how did Alex hurt you?". My husband stepped up, apologized to his sister and explained that it was an accident. His sister backed down then but she hovered around her son the rest of the evening and my other sister-in-law overheard her tell her husband that my son was a tyrant and always hurting their son. Meanwhile, both of my sons get along famously with my husband's brother's daughter and their other friends and in fact, when he and his cousin are playing without my inlaws around, everyone gets along great too. It's only when my inlaws are there that there are problems.&nbsp

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While these comments and overreactions don't seem to bother my son as nearly as much as it does me, I am concerned that I'm teaching my inlaws how to treat my son. I noticed during this last visit that the pattern may be spreading to my younger son who learned over to hug their 15-month-old daughter who was sitting besides him on the floor and again, my sister-in-law flew across the room to pick her baby up and away from my son. I fear that eventually, these snide comments will hurt my sons' feelings and I would prefer to stop it before it does. My husband usually lets these things slide and only occasionally steps in like the sword incident but I feel we need to be more assertive in stopping this behavior. Am I overreacting or should I step in and start defending my son against his aunt and uncle?&nbsp

Hi lulu, I totally agree with you. Your sister inlaw behaivor is chidish. I think that your husband should do more than what he is doing being that it is his sister in all. It is very obvious that the problem goes deeper than what your sister inlaw is making it out to be. I realy think that it is unfair to the children, they cant even play togather like normal kids and normal cousins. The situation is going to get worse. So you have no chose but do like all good mothers do "PROTECT THERE KIDS"

So as the better woman you should invite your sister inlaw and her husband over for dinner without the kids around and have an openly, calm discussion about the family situation. If you dont do this her kids are going to begin to blame all sorts of things on your kids because they know that their parent are going to point the finger at your kids and lash out toward them. After a while they are not going to want to play with each other.

It is obvious that your sister inlaw doesnt have very good parenting skills, because she is not showing good behaivor to her children by yelling and pulling her son away from your son during a playful game of swords. And she should realy think how she might of mad your lil boy feel when all he wanted to do is give his lil cousin a hug and imaturely she snatch her daughter away. Being only that he is a little child and his way of thinking is like a child she may have made your son feel like hugging is bad, having feeling is bad and so on. So go head and have a talk with her. If that dont work just know you did the adult thing and let the kids play togather when neither kids parents are around and let the adult (perhaps another family member) tell her how great the kids played togather and how much fun they had togather(like they probably would love to do w/out anyone fussing) and maybe she will see that kids will be kidsand maybe its just her and not your kids. kimmie1

Disciplining children of different ages

My husband and I are having trouble finding an effective means of disciplining our three newly adopted children. Initially before we adopted the children we agreed that we would use the time out method and did ad it worked well for a while. Now that we know the children better we are faced with some unusual problems. Our eldest is a girl. She is very far behind educationally. Although she is presently in the sixth grade, she is only on a second grade level. My husband continually takes her word that she has no homework and has nothing to work on for school. This has presented many problems for the two of us. He applies no discipline when it comes to her and says this is normal for a father-daughter relationship. He is afraid that if we discipline her she will run away. I feel that if she does not get the education she needs she will not be able to survive in life. I am currently fighting with the school to get some testing done but they say that she cannot be tested because she has not acquired the English language proficiency she needs to take the test. Although I continually confront the school and her teachers with the fact that she never comes home with homework except for one book report, and my husband refuses to believe anything but what he is told by our daughter, I feel trapped. I feel that I am not a good parent if I do not provide my child with the skills and education she needs to get along in life. It is doubly difficult in that all three of them are still learning social skills. We also have been confronted with the problem of having my mother-in-law who is 85 years old and has dementia living with us and adapting with the fact that my middle son has been recently diagnosed with Celiac disease. I cannot seem to get across to my daughter that she needs an education. She seems comfortable with the fact that my husband has told her she can live with us forever if she wants and feels no need to achieve. It is not that I would not want our daughter to live with us for as long as she needs and wants to but I know that she needs much more than that to survive in this world. I feel like I am fighting a losing battle when it comes to this. Help! Any suggestions, comments, etc. would be of help.

still disagreement

My question is how do I get my husband to listen and understand my views on this. I love him and don't want to leave but he is always right on disiplining our daughter. He has been a teacher for many years. so he says he has seen what happens to kids depending on the way they was raised, but I just think he goes over board. I mean for lying and getting bad grades the disapline is selling all of her show animals, grounded, and she has to do school work after school until bed time and if she does not do in an hour what he thinks she was suppose to she gets a spanking.&nbsp

Last night she got 3 spankings for not getting done what he thought she should have done.&nbsp

She told him she was going to be a vet. when she grew up. He said yah right with these kind of grades you are going to be a dump truck driver. I don't think he does her any good telling her things like that. I told her she can be one she just has to try hard to get good grades.&nbsp

But he calls her special ed, stupid, retard. things like that I do not feel this is good for her.&nbsp

I am not saying she is always doing what is right or good. I just think this is hurting her more than helping her. I have talked to him about this over and over again but it doesn't help. I am 3 months pregnant and do not want to leave. just want him to stop this. How do I make him understand?&nbsp

Direspectful 12 year old

I am the step-mother of a 12 year old girl who has little or no respect for her father and I. (I've been with her father and living in the home for the past 2 years) She is a slob, to the point of being unsanitary. (Example: leaving food on kitchen floor, leaving sanitary napkins on the floor) We've told her dozens of times that she needs to clean after herself, and we've explained that we have younger children around who we don't want exposed to some of the unsanitary things she does, because it becomes a health issue for them. Asking her to pick up doesn't work because she either ignores us, or will pick up the mess, then do the same exact thing next time around! &nbsp

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She makes excuses all of the time as to why she isn't doing school work, to her she's not accountable for ANY of her actions. When confronted, she will tell her father or I to shut the f**k up and leave her alone. Or she'll tell us we're being a-holes because we expect her to do her school work, and clean up after herself. I don't know how to punish her. When she's way out of line, I tell her go to her room, and she looks right at me and says "no, i'm not." We took her TV and stereo out of her room as punishment, to no effect. She torments her younger sister to the point of making her cry, then tells her "stop being a retard"! This she says to a 3 year old! I'm at my wits end, and I've told my husband if he doesn't gain control of the situation, I'd leave him. There was one occasion where she was pushing and hitting me when I tried to punish her and she bruised my arms all up!

I must tell you that she was apparently physically abused by her biological mother as a young child, and my husband uses this to excuse her actions. I understand it may have some bearing on her actions, but I feel he uses it as a "crutch" for her. Also, my mother in law and my sister in laws feel we should be more lenient, and not punish her for her actions. So my step daughter goes to them, cries for sympathy and lies about how "mistreated" she is at home. Then I or my husband catch hell for supposedly being "too strict", and I feel put in the middle because I'm being accused of mistreating the girl because of her lies. I feel it's a no win situation. I don't know what to do! How do you punsih a child who will verbally and physically attack you, and then play the innocent act?&nbsp

discipline

i think discipline is ok on some extent. parents have the right to discipline their children if they deserve it but there is a limit on some situations. if its going to put the child at risk to where it hurts them or makes them get to the point to where they do something stupid dont dicipline them in that way or try other methods.